Nuclear Waste

News about Nuclear Waste, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times.

Chronology of Coverage

Dec. 4, 2014

Op-Ed article by Columbia Prof Michael B Gerrard warns rising seas threaten coral atoll in Marshall Islands in the Pacific and are likely to spread plutonium left by United States nuclear tests in the 1940s and 1950s. MORE

Nov. 18, 2014

Nuclear Regulatory Commission head Allison M Macfarlane says agency's rules are not geared for supervising decommissioning of nuclear reactors, task that will occupy much of its time in coming years; is stepping down at end of 2014. MORE

Oct. 30, 2014

Energy Department says February plutonium waste accident at New Mexico repository will cost at least $551 million to clean up before site can be reopened; chemical reaction came as blow to country's efforts to clean up old nuclear weapons manufacturing sites and has forced government to take extraordinary measures to prevent repetition. MORE

Oct. 17, 2014

Aug. 30, 2014

Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules that nuclear waste from power plants can be stored above ground in containers that can be maintained and guarded indefinitely; decision means that new nuclear plants can be built and old ones can expand their operations despite lack of long-term plan for waste disposal. MORE

Aug. 8, 2014

Officials in Loving County, Tex, are hoping to entice federal government to consider possibility of using area as a site to store high-level radioactive waste; county, which has a population of 95, hopes that becoming a storage site will spur development. MORE

May. 31, 2014

Los Alamos National Laboratory will not be able to meet a deadline for getting toxic waste from decades of building nuclear bombs off its northern New Mexico campus before wildfire season peaks. MORE

May. 17, 2014

Radiation leak at the government’s nuclear dump in New Mexico is linked to waste container shipped from Los Alamos National Laboratory; leak raises questions about the safety of other barrels being stored on the laboratory’s northern campus and at a temporary site in West Texas. MORE

May. 15, 2014

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee questions panel of specialists about safety and security of nuclear reactors that have been retired or forced out of business; asks whether enough has been done to assure that spent fuel from decommissioned reactors is being properly secured. MORE

Mar. 21, 2014

Carlsbad Journal; Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, nation’s only permanent underground repository for nuclear weapons waste, revived Carlsbad, NM, but has been closed since mysterious leak exposed 17 employees to radiation in February; concerns about contamination have given way to fears that facility will not reopen anytime soon. MORE

Mar. 17, 2014

Cleanup of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has been left to a badly managed, poorly trained and destitute work force that has made some dangerous missteps; Tokoyo Electric Power Company, which operates plant, has turned its resources elsewhere, attracting criticism; insiders say deteriorating labor conditions have caused a string of contaminated water leaks and other serious errors. MORE

Mar. 2, 2014

Sen Ron Wyden of Oregon expresses concern over high-level radioactive waste at Energy Dept's Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington State, which is just across the Columbia River from Oregon. MORE

Feb. 28, 2014

Energy Department says 13 employees who worked night shift at nuclear waste burial site in New Mexico after underground leak are carrying radioactive materials in their bodies, but it is too soon to say how much health risks this poses. MORE

Feb. 27, 2014

Federal Dept of Energy says preliminary tests show that 13 workers were exposed to radiation during a leak at the nation's underground nuclear waste dump in New Mexico. MORE

Feb. 26, 2014

Managers at New Mexico's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant are planning to send workers back in and are reassuring local residents almost two weeks after unexplained puff of radioactive materials forced mine's closing; facility is used to bury nuclear bomb wastes. MORE

Feb. 25, 2014

Federal Energy Dept says more airborne radiation has been detected in southeastern New Mexico from a leak at the Waste Isolation Pilot plant near Carlsbad, nation's first underground nuclear waste dump. MORE

Feb. 20, 2014

Residents of Navajo village Red Water Pond Road in New Mexico are facing permanent relocation, after having had to leave their homes at least twice since 2007 because of contamination of the surrounding area by toxic waste leftover from uranium mining; reservation is considered one of the largest uranium-contaminated areas in United States history. MORE

Feb. 10, 2014

Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in the New Mexico desert is drawing new attention as a possible solution to the problem of what to do with nuclear waste; although the plant is only allowed to accept plutonium waste, some experts say that proper testing and analysis might show that the plant could store more radioactive waste from spent nuclear fuel. MORE

Feb. 1, 2014

Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant says elevated radiation levels detected nearby were caused by naturally occurring background radon, not by any faults at the aging plant. MORE

Jan. 21, 2014

Texas firm Waste Control Specialists is only company in United States that will dispose of some categories of low-level radioactive waste for 95 nuclear reactors in 29 states; disposal is in state of uncertainty, with no program to find repository and no decision by Congress on who should attempt task. MORE

Nov. 29, 2013

Energy Department began cleaning up South Carolina's Savannah River nuclear weapons plant in 1996, but work occurring is at such slow pace that completion of cleanup by projected date of 2023 appears highly unlikely; department says work may not be finished until the 2040s, setting off fierce battle between it and state, which threatens $154 million in fines. MORE

Nov. 20, 2013

Federal appeals court rules that the Energy Dept must stop collecting fees of about $750 million a year that are paid by consumers and intended to fund a program for the disposal of nuclear waste, program which is no longer in operation. MORE

Sep. 25, 2013

TerraPower, start-up led by Bill Gates, is at work on new kind of reactor that would be fueled by today’s nuclear waste, and could supply the nation's electricity for 800 years; start-up has raised tens of millions of dollars, but building prototype reactor could cost $5 billion. MORE

Aug. 21, 2013

Editorial welcomes federal appeals court's rebuke to Nuclear Regulatory Commission for 'flouting the law' when it stopped analyzing the safety of the proposed nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada; calls on commission to publish unredacted safety evaluation of the site; urges Congress to appropriate new funds to determine whether or not Yucca would make an acceptable repository. MORE

Aug. 14, 2013

Federal appeals court rules that Nuclear Regulatory Commission was 'flouting the law' when it stopped work on review of proposed nuclear waste dump at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, despite Obama administration's insistence that site be shut down. MORE

Apr. 8, 2013

Tokyo Electric Power Company reports small toxic leak at stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, two days after reporting much larger leak from similar storage pool; raises new public concerns about company’s ability to safely manage plant. MORE

Apr. 3, 2013

Federal advisory panel finds hazardous design problems in treatment plant that Energy Department is counting on to stabilize radioactive waste at Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State, site of nation's largest environmental cleanup project; finding is latest in plant's expensive and troubled history. MORE

Mar. 8, 2013

Cleanup project at Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Richland, Wash, has been hit by leaking waste, layoffs and delays; looming federal budget cuts could mean up to 4,800 workers out of 9,000-person work force, mostly employed by private contractors, could be furloughed or laid off starting April 1. MORE

Feb. 23, 2013

Gov Jay Inslee of Washington State says that six underground tanks holding radioactive waste are leaking at Hanford Nuclear Reservation in eastern Washington. MORE

Sep. 24, 2012

Energy Department plan to dispose of stockpiles of uranium 233, a substitute for uranium that is no longer needed, has come under criticism from some experts who worry that the disposal presents a security risk. MORE

Aug. 14, 2012

Allison Macfarlane, the new chairwoman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, heads vote to suspend licensing for nuclear plants, citing concerns that the industry's evaluation of earthquake vulnerability is inadequate; also announces that she is optimistic that consensus can be reached on a site for burying nuclear waste. MORE

Aug. 4, 2012

Federal appeals court says it will issue an order for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to resume an evaluation of a possible nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, a volcanic ridge in the Nevada desert, unless Congress acts by December to resolve the legal tangle around the project. MORE

Jul. 5, 2012

Editorial calls on lawmakers and policy planners to revive the search for safe ways to store used fuel rods from nuclear power reactors; expresses support for plan put forward by Allison Macfarlane, incoming chair of the new Nuclear Regulatory Commission, to create centralized storage facilities to receive the rods until a permanent burial site can be found. MORE

Jun. 11, 2012

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will meet to consider whether to approve Allison M Macfarlane, Pres Obama's nominee to head the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; discussion will likely center on the future of nuclear waste disposal in the United States, and Macfarlane's longtime criticism of the Yucca Mountain facility in Nevada. MORE

Jun. 9, 2012

Federal appeals court rules that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission acted hastily in concluding that spent fuel can be stored safely at nuclear plants for the next century in the absence of a permanent repository; rules that the commission must consider what will happen if a permanent repository is never established. MORE

May. 27, 2012

Pool brimming with used fuel rods and filled with vast quantities of radioactive cesium sits on the top floor of a heavily damaged reactor building at Fukushima Daiichi; public’s fears about the pool, which is covered only with plastic, have grown as some scientists have warned that it has potential for setting off a new catastrophe. MORE

May. 3, 2012

Lawyers representing Washington State and South Carolina argue before federal court panel that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is flouting the law by declining to pass judgement on the suitability of Yucca Mountain as a repository for nuclear waste; arguments are part of lawsuit against the federal government brought by the states, both of which have large amounts of nuclear waste. MORE

Feb. 16, 2012

Editorial welcomes Pres Obama's 'consent-based approach' through which the federal government will offer incentives for states to volunteer areas as storage sites for spent nuclear fuel rods; notes that consent strategy, and lure of jobs, has worked in several European countries. MORE

Jan. 27, 2012

Commission appointed to find alternatives to a failed plan to store nuclear waste in the Nevada desert declares that the United States would have to develop a 'consent-based approach' for choosing a site because leaving the decision to Congress had failed.; panel says by securing local consent the government might avoid the kind of conflicts that led to the cancellation of plans to create a repository at Yucca Mountain. MORE

Nov. 28, 2011

Police in Dannenberg, Germany, clear sit-in of thousands of protesters trying to block train carrying shipment of radioactive waste; demonstrators claim waste containers and temporary storage site are not safe. MORE

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August 8, 2014, Friday

Los Alamos National Laboratory will not be able to meet a deadline for getting toxic waste from decades of building nuclear bombs off its northern New Mexico campus before wildfire season peaks, the Department of Energy said Friday.